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Alexander Heffner, Opinion contributor Published 3:15 a.m. ET Dec. 16, 2019 | Updated 10:51 a.m. ET Dec. 16, 2019

Presidents have been impeached, but none have been removed from office due to impeachment. Confusing? Here's how. Just the FAQs, USA TODAY

The Trump impeachment is spotlighting the Founders' fears of foreign influence on US security and leaders, and turning liberals into originalists.

There is one indisputable fact about the impeachment of President Donald Trump that should be clear to all Americans: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is making the Constitution great again. Furthermore, she is charting a path forward for the Democratic Party to once again be the guardians of civil society and democracy and to make the liberals on the Supreme Court, and on the streets of America, the true originalists.

Last week Pelosi told the public and her congressional colleagues that she would not be trying to corral House votes on impeachment. "People have to come to their own conclusions," she said. "They've seen the facts as presented in the Intelligence Committee.They've seen the Constitution.They know it. They take an oath to protect and defend it.

That is the point. Abuse of power and obstruction are the cumulative law breaking and corrupt actions of the Trump years, from the Russian and Ukrainian affairs to Trump's violations of the emoluments clauses,relentless attacks on the First Amendment and authoritarian fantasyabouttearing up the Constitution and serving for 29 years.If you think these are Trumps jokes on the media, "Demagoguery and Democracy" author PatriciaRoberts-Miller reminds us that World War II Axis villains started their wars against humanity masking autocratic dystopian dreams in comedy.

By contrast, Pelosi has revived the Founders original intent, their established textual concern about foreign interference, bribery and influence adversely affecting the welfare of American citizens. Trumps violations are unbecoming a president of the United States.

Not only was this concern about foreign powers fortified constitutionally, Americas first president, George Washington, reiterated in his Farewell Address that his successors must never become subjected to the dictates of foreign governments. Had Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madisonor any of the framers heard an American presidential candidate and then president implore adversaries to hack our own American institutions, they would have considered that treason.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 10, 2019.(Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, AP)

There has been a bogus contention over too many years that the textualist view of the Constitution is only the 18th century ratified document instead of the text as it organically and authentically matured. This has always been a false choice. You are an originalist by reading the document, in its entire meaning and its entire body of precedent over decades and centuries.

This is what Pelosi has done, and her timing is preempting what could well be partisan Supreme Court decisions that deny the authority of Congress to subpoena witnesses and shield the presidents taxes from congressional and public scrutiny.The impeachment articles defend both federalism and the separation of powers, in which the Republicans believed until Trumps authoritarianism cannibalized them.

Impeach and remove: An election is no solution when Trump, Russia and Republicans are determined to steal it

Now there is reason for Pelosi to fear these faux textualists will ignore the original document of which they have feigned infatuation and rule in Trumps favor.This fear is justified.In the Senate, McConnell's decision to coordinate an impeachment defense with the White House and Graham's refusal to be an impartial juror are, like Trump's conduct, the opposite of the checks and balances the Founders envisioned.

Trump appointees to the bench have been proven retrograde, refusing to acknowledge many historicalconstitutional protections, and even the legal authority of Brown v. Board of Education. Roberts and company have also ruled against the centerpiece of American life: Voting. After deciding that Ohio can remove citizens from the rolls for not voting, the Supreme Court has emboldened disenfranchisement in Wisconsin, Georgia and elsewhere. The framers would laugh that anti-democratic outcome out of town. And theyd be appalled at the ruling to uphold a Muslim travel banthat excluded Saudi Arabia, the country that deployed the hijackers against us on 9/11 and to whichTrump has business ties.

Too serious to ignore:USA TODAY's Editorial Board: Impeach President Trump

Pelosi and her new originalists know it is past time for jurists and elected representatives to assert this basic truth: The Constitution, with the Bill of Rights, 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, reflects the norms and laws by which we live. It is Trump and Attorney General William Barr who behave like third-world autocrats and want to undermine the literal meaning of the Constitution of the United States. But Pelosi is determined not to let them.

A republic if you can keep it, Pelosi said, quoting Benjamin Franklin,when she opened the impeachment inquiry in September. Thats also the title of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuchs book. But the mantle of the Founders does not belong to Gorsuch, or to Chief Justice John Roberts, or those farcically pretending to be textualists.Pelosi is rightfully reclaiming it for the American people, a majority of whom voted against Trumpin 2016, and half of whom nowfavor his removal from office.

Impeachment is the beginning of liberal originalism to safeguard law and order in America. And we'll haveSpeaker Pelosi to thank for it.

Alexander Heffner is host of "The Open Mind" on PBSand coauthor of A Documentary History of the United States.Follow him on Twitter: @heffnera

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What I'm Hearing: The hot stove was on fire during the Winter Meetings in San Diego, and as Bob Nightengale details, Scott Boras was the center of attention. USA TODAY

During his introduction Saturday as the newest member of the Los Angeles Angels, third baseman Anthony Rendon explained why he missed the Washington Nationals' controversial White House visitwith President Donald Trump after winning the World Series.

"I wanted to go so bad," Rendon said."Obviously being from Texas, I think you guys know which views we lean towards."

"I was actually told that the White House visit wasn't supposed to be until Wednesday ... I was already packing up the house, my wife was already back home in Houston, so I was going to fly back up Wednesday morning.

"Then the day of the parade (Sunday) they go 'Oh the White House visit has been changed to Monday.' Ihad something planned."

Rendon during his introductory news conference on Saturday.(Photo: Alex Gallardo, AP)

Rendon added that he was supposed to golf with Trump and teammates Ryan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg in Florida during spring training, butthe president didn't make it.

"He actually bailed on Strasburg and Zim and I in spring training," Rendon said."We were supposed to golf together, and he didn't show up. So that was a little (payback)for him. We were supposed to play at Trump International."

The 29-year-old third baseman was one of the top free agents available this winter and he signed a seven-year, $245 million deal with the Angels after spending his first seven seasons with the Nationals.

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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told CNNs Jake Tapper that President Donald Trump should not be impeached because Trump is dedicated to rooting out corruption, and his motives for holding up the military funding to Ukraine were centered around those concerns. In his response, however, Tapper schooled the congressman in the facts.

Tapper asked Paul, So youre saying that you think that President Trump was actually doing this because he was combating corruption?

Paul replied, Well, yes, there are all kinds of accusations that Burisma and Hunter Biden and the company were corrupt and the founder of the company was corrupt.

Tapper then went in hard on the senator, listing the absurd amount of corrupt former aides and associates that the president seemingly had no problem surrounding himself with.

But this is a president whose former personal attorney Michael Cohen, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, former campaign adviser Roger Stone, former deputy campaign chair Rick Gates, former associate George Papadopoulos, all of them have been convicted of federal crimes, Tapper said.

The host continued by citing a corrupt business and charity that donned the Trump name, In addition, last year, Trump University settled a $25 million fraud lawsuit. Last month, President Trump admitted misusing his own charitable foundations money, was ordered to pay $2 million.

Tapper then drove home his point, asking, You really think President Trump is concerned about rooting out corruption?

Instead of answering the question, Paul pivoted and spoke about former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Republicans have seized upon this argument in defense of the president since the Justice Departments Inspector General report, released last week, concluded that the FBI made significant errors when surveilling Page in 2016.

So, Tapper put the focus back on his point and said, It was the Trump Justice Department that put all those people in prison or sentenced all those people. Its not me.

Again, Paul returned to Page, but Tapper replied, That doesnt absolve Paul Manafort of money laundering.

Tapper added, Im asking you about President Trump and corruption. I just listed a number of close associates of President Trumps who are either in prison or facing sentencing.

Paul replied by sounding a familiar note in our current political environment where seemingly everyone chooses their own facts, Right. But I think its based on opinion, Paul said.

Link:
Rand Pauls Defense of Trump on Corruption Goes Down in Flames During Contentious Interview - Rolling Stone

David Shulkin, the former Secretary of Veterans Affairs, talks about Washington - and being fired by Tweet. USA TODAY

WASHINGTON He had been on the bubble with the president for more than a month. The White House was an enigma.

Entreaties to President Donald Trump and his chief of staff were met with reassurances, up to a fewhours before he was fired. In a tweet.

When it happens, not only is it a surprise, but its painful, David Shulkin, Trumps first secretary of Veterans Affairs, said about being axed in March 2018.

He was not the first and far from the last member of Trumps administration to be unceremoniously dispatched that way.But Shulkin is the first former Cabinet member to pen an insiders account.

The physician and one-time hospital administrator told USA TODAY he wantedthe public to know what its like to serve in Washington.He wanted to lay out the lessons he learned and the plans he left unfinished.

"Nobody asked me, What were you working on, did you have a plan? Was there a formula that was working?' Shulkin said. "I felt like I had spent three years learning and failing and learning and failing, and yet there was nobody to share that with."

Then-Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin appears before a congressional committee on March 15, 2018 in Washington, DC.(Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images)

His account, "It Shouldnt Be This Hard to Serve Your Country," is a mix of policy discussion, legacy preservation and score-settling. (Shulkin blames a group of political appointees for undermining him and ultimatelygetting him fired.) And of course there's a sprinkling of scenes with Trump.

During Shulkins interview for the Cabinet post at Trump Tower, he wrote,the president-elect remarkedthat hes a "good-looking guy." Trump sought advice onShulkin'shiring from Marvel Entertainment chairman andMar-a-Lago member Ike Perlmutter.

In a chapter titled "Team Chaos," Shulkin recountsOval Office meetings and nighttime phone calls in which Trump askedabout topics Shulkinhad no expertise in, such as what to do about North Korea or whether he should movethe American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. (He did.)

"He would talk about what was on his mind. Sometimes it would relate directly to the area that I had responsibility for, but oftentimes it was about world events or things on his calendar or schedule," Shulkin said in an interview last week. He said he had to get used to the "free flow of conversation."

Asked for comment, the White House referred to a statement provided to The Washington Post before the books release in October, criticizing Shulkin for profiting off his time in office and sharing "outlandish" claims about conversations with Trump.

For his part, Shulkin wont say what he thinks of the president, his fitness for office or whether he should be impeached."I do dance around this because Im trying to reserve my personal opinions,"he said.

Shulkin was the only holdover from the Obama administration in Trumps Cabinet. He became undersecretary for health at theVA in 2015 after runninghospitals in New York and New Jersey.

During his time at the VA, he increased the agencys capacity to treat veterans by expanding remote health careand instituting same-day services for urgent needs. He also increased transparency by posting wait times for VA facilities and comparisons to non-VA care.

Among the lessons Shulkin said he learned at the VA was thatthe way to make big changes in Washington is to publicly declare your intentions before checking with others, including Congress, the White House or even agency employees charged with carrying them out.

Thats what he said happened in 2016 with same-day services, whichinitially triggered pushback from outsideand inside the agency, where employees saidit couldnt be done.

The VAis "almost set up for a system to stay exactly the way it is," Shulkin said.

The White House soured on him when he didnt move quickly or farenough to expand veterans options for taxpayer-funded health care outside the VA, Trump has said. Shulkin maintains he was fired because he opposed privatizing the agency, which he said otherpolitical appointees were pushing.

Tensions escalated in early 2018 after the VA inspector general concluded Shulkin had misused taxpayer money on a European trip.

In his last phone call with President Trump, hours before he was fired, Shulkin said, they discussed the changes underway at the agency. Among those left unfinished were an overhaul of veterans disability benefits and a reorganization of the VA.

Then came the tweet.

"Not having a lot of time to prepare for that certainly not having a lot of time to make sure that you appropriately transition your responsibilities is not an ideal way to leave the government," Shulkin said.

While he wont take a position on impeachment, he said the process has laid bare the political divide inthe country.

"Im sad to see that the countrys going through this," Shulkin said. "The fact that people are viewing this through very different lenses is showing why its so difficult for us to make progress on the difficult solutions, on the difficult problems that are facing the country."

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David Shulkin speaks out about his time in Trump's Cabinet and being fired by tweet - USA TODAY

The closest thing to a shout-out to trade policy came from Sen. Bernie Sanders the sixth and final candidate to speak who asserted he would stand up for workers abroad and stand up for workers in the United States of America.

Its par for the course in the Democratic primary. If the presidential contenders say anything at all about trade policy, its typically criticism of Trumps go-it-alone approach in fighting China, a passing acknowledgment that farmers are hurting from the presidents approach or a caution that the replacement deal for NAFTA needs to be strongly enforceable.

They arent even tackling the issue in their broader messaging. Out of the dozens of television ads Democrats have taken out in Iowa, not a single one has focused on trade.

Trump, meanwhile, has made trade a central focus of his presidency. The self-styled Tariff Man characterizes his fight against China as a wildly successful move that has crippled its economy, and lauded his own efforts to fix the long-criticized trade deal with Mexico and Canada as huge accomplishments enabled by his deal-making savvy.

Just this week the president, who argues his confrontational approach is ending the war on American workers, announced a preliminary trade deal with China. And his administration landed a deal with House Democrats to replace the 25-year-old NAFTA.

The Democratic field has been noticeably quiet on both issues here, leading some Iowa Democrats to worry it could cost the party here and in the battleground states they hope to claw back from Trump in 2020.

Its certainly a missed opportunity, Sean Bagniewski, chair of the Polk County Democrats, said.

I think trade is the area to show you care about whats hurting rural voters. But now with the caucus less than two months away, you could say the cake is already in the oven, Bagniewski added. Its a little too late.

Trump has imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, a move that resulted in harsh retaliation from Beijing, particularly on U.S. agricultural products like soybeans and pork. The pain has been felt acutely in Iowa, the nations number one pork producing state and second-leading soybean producer.

Iowans are quick to acknowledge that sales are down and farm communities from farmers to equipment manufacturers to the banks they put their money in are struggling due to Trumps actions.

But in countless trips to Iowa by 2020 Democrats, they arent spending much time talking in depth about an issue thats essential to the health of the state economy.

Wed expect them to speak up more, said Quentin Hart, mayor of Waterloo, Iowa.

Democrats at the local level, ranging from state and county leaders to Reps. Abby Finkenauer and Cindy Axne, have made trade a more central issue because they know Iowans are hurting, Hart said.

Its particularly important in places like Waterloo, but it hasnt been a main leading point in these conversations, Hart said recently after his city hosted a presidential forum attended by five candidates, none of whom mentioned trade policy.

At the Iowa Farmers Union annual meeting in Grinnell in early December, it was a similar story: Democrats made quick references to Trumps trade wars, without offering much detail on what their approach on trade would be.

Donald Trump is treating farmers like poker chips in one of his bankrupt casinos, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said to an audience of more than 100 farmers and agricultural industry members.

Klobuchar is often credited on Capitol Hill as one of the most trade-savvy lawmakers given that she represents Minnesota, a farm state that largely relies on trade, particularly with Canada, its neighbor to the north. Klobuchar is also a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, where she has been vocal in pressing the Trump administration to expand U.S. exports abroad.

Still, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the only major candidate to roll out a comprehensive trade plan, which in some ways more closely resembles Trumps agenda than Barack Obamas. Her plan would overhaul how Democratic administrations have handled trade in the past and create a list of nine separate criteria a country would have to meet before negotiating a trade deal with the U.S

For decades, big multinational corporations have bought and lobbied their way into dictating Americas trade policy, Warren wrote, calling the policies across Republican and Democratic administrations a failed trade agenda.

But after announcing her vision days before the July Democratic debate in Detroit, Warren rarely makes reference to her grand plan for trade.

It would be a good thing for her to emphasize more, said Jeff Link, a longtime Iowa-based Democratic strategist.

Link pointed out that trade policy is coming up a lot more in congressional races, such as in Iowas 4th District where Democrat J.D. Scholten is running for Rep. Steve Kings seat. But he noted that stems from Scholtens ability to travel to towns with less than 1,000 people and really pick up a lot of material on trade from speaking to small towns.

Some Iowa Democrats believe candidates are steering clear from talking about trade because its a complicated subject and they dont want a blunder on the campaign trail to get amplified on social media. (Trump, by contrast, never shies from talking about trade at rallies.)

Theres a palpable fear of saying something wrong, Bagniewski said.

Democratic strategists argue that its likely trade policy will loom larger once the crowded field of candidates shrinks and the prospect of confronting Trump directly draws nearer.

Link observed that Buttigieg has more recently weaved trade into his stump speech in Iowa a move that comes as he has surged in the polls in the Hawkeye state.

Its an unavoidable issue because its a signature issue for Trump, said Bill Reinsch, a former Clinton administration official and trade expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Theyre going to have to deal with it, and they would be smart to practice in Iowa, but guess not.

Maya King contributed to this report.

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Why Trump is winning on trade in Iowa - POLITICO